Raid Yields Large Supplies of Nazi Emblems, Neo-Nazi Hate Literature

May 16, 1978

BONN (May. 15)

Police in Scharzfeld in north Germany’s Harz region raided several homes and autos late Saturday night, recovering large supplies of Nazi emblems and neo-Nazi propaganda. This included pamphlets condoning the murder of former Italian Prime Minister and Christian Democratic leader Aldo Moro and former German Federal State Attorney Siegfried Buback, and calling for the killings of former Bavarian State Premier Wilhelm Hoeger who participated in the Nuremberg trials and of a top German internal security official.

A man in possession of a pistol was taken into provisional custody. The raid took place following a rally in Scharzfeld of the ultra-rightwing "Independent Circle of Friends"(ICF) organization.

Supporters distributed a special edition of the "Voelkischer Beobachter" which used to be the Nazi Party’s official newspaper, printed to mark Adolf Hitler’s 89th birthday on April 20. The material, much of it printed in the U.S. and Denmark, also included copies of the rightwing magazine "Wille and Weg" which described Moro as "a rat who enriched himself from the people."

Ironically, the raid took place on the same day that the weekly "Spiegel" disclosed a growing trend of terrorism among rightwing neo-Nazis patterned on the activities of Germany’s notorious leftwing Baader-Meinhof gang. The ICF’s activities were discovered following the arrest last month of a German rightwinger charge with an armed attack on a group of Dutch soldiers stationed in Germany and the theft of their weapons. Police now think the neo-Nazis, supported by rightwing groups in England, have been responsible for several bank robberies as well, aimed at providing financing for their activities.

Spiegel said the number of organized rightwing extremists is diminishing (from 28,000 in 1971 to 18,000 last year) but a hard core of about 150 activists and 1000 "sympathizers" remains. "Only a few dozen" of the activists support violence, says Spiegel. But in 1977 the number of attacks doubled to 613, and with every second arrest, state security sources said, they found "weapons, ammunition and explosives."